Umeed Or Unmaking Of Minorities?

“The past holds us together; why should the present or the future divide us in spirit?” — Jawaharlal Nehru, convocation address at Aligarh Muslim University, January 24, 1948

- Thamizhachi Thangapandian

The Waqf (Amendment) Act, 2025—titled the Unified Waqf Management, Empowerment, Efficiency and Development (UMEED) Act—has been passed by the Union government with the stated aim of streamlining waqf administration. Yet, behind this innocuous acronym lies a deeply troubling legislative overreach. Far from empowering communities, the Act spells U for Unconstitutional restrictions, M for Marginalisation of religious autonomy, E for Exclusion from spiritual practice, another E for Erosion of precedent, and D for Discriminatory governance.

The legislation fundamentally alters the principles that have long guided waqf creation and management. It introduces restrictive eligibility criteria, disproportionately empowers secular authorities and blurs the lines between state oversight and religious self-governance. This is not reform—it is rupture.

One of the most concerning provisions is the imposition of a five-year requirement of practicing Islam for anyone seeking to create a waqf. This arbitrary threshold is not grounded in Islamic jurisprudence, and contradicts both constitutional guarantees and lived realities. It excludes recent converts, those returning to faith, and others who may not fit into narrow state definitions of religious practice. In doing so, the provision violates Article 14 (equality before law) and Article 25 (freedom of religion), erecting bureaucratic barriers to an act of faith.